Sword Art Online Revised
by pauljb336
Summary: SPOILER ALERT! Learn about the problems of Sword Art Online and read the version of SAO the I came up with to fix everything.


Sword Art Online

Revised

Before I write any kind of script or story (whatever format) of Sword Art Online, I want to first explain in as much detail as I can the problems with the anime and what could be done to fix them. The main part of the anime where most of the problems lie is the SAO, or Sword Art Online, arc. It is the first half of the first season and leads to the ALO, or Alfheim Online, arc. So, get ready to read a lot about Sword Art Online, its problems, fixes, and final thoughts.

Sword Art Online is an anime about a boy who dives into a virtual game known as Sword Art Online, hence the title. The anime has many flaws, mistakes, screw-ups, and sometimes makes absolutely no sense at all. The ultimate plot is that the boy, Kazuto, dives into the game with the avatar name Kirito. He meets Asuna, fights his way up by himself to the point where nobody could possibly hurt him, and he ends up being the one who ends the game. This arc is the beginning of the story and catalyst to everything the anime is about. The second arc, unfortunately, isn't even in SAO. The game is over and the characters of the anime have moved over to a game called Alfheim Online, aka ALO. Season 2, known as Sword Art Online 2, has no connection with SAO and instead goes into the game Gun Gale Online, aka GGO. Why is the anime named Sword Art Online when SAO only exists in the first arc of the first season? Aside from that, many Youtubers has pointed out a lot of the flaws of the anime. Starting with the first arc of the first season, this one probably makes the most sense as it is after all the only arc that has SAO.

It starts with people in the real world excited about the new virtual reality (VR) game coming out. Then we see Kazuto put on his head gear known as Nerve Gear and enters the game. Such a sudden entrance into the game with no back story puts the future events with little to no sense and meaning. There's the purpose as to why Akihiko Kayaba locked everyone into the game with no way out, along with the concept "die in-game, die IRL". The only answer to that question is "You know, I can't even remember now why I did it". So it gives no explanation to that.

When Kirito meets Sacchi and her friends, he stupidly decides to hide the fact that he's twice as powerful as everyone else. Sacchi and her friends die and Kirito tries to get an item that can revive a dead player to use on Sacchi. Unfortunately, it only works within 10 seconds of the player's death. He gives it to his friend Klein and leaves.

After he pairs up with Asuna and spends some time with her, they get feelings for each other and ends up getting married. They buy a cabin on Floor 22 and spend a vacation there. They find a little girl with amnesia who turns out to be an AI program for the game named Yui. When she defends Kirito and Asuna from a boss with a scythe and defeats it, she explains to them what she is and disappears because the system tries to delete her. Kirito quickly programs in the console to find her program and turn it into an item in his inventory. That right there shows he has advanced programming skills that are ridiculous and could've just as easily found the "log out" option removed from the menu, delete many bosses, increase the power of many or all the players crazily so they can easily defeat all the bosses and beat the game, or simply place her program back into the system so she doesn't die or gets turned into an item after the system removes her. The idea of making him a talented programmer was a stupid one. Yui's death was stupid, or at least the way she died. The reason she even showed up was because she was attracted to the love between Kirito and Asuna. Episode 4 shows in a scene several romantic couples in one place. That shows of course the idea why Yui chose Kirito and Asuna for their love was stupid and senseless.

Akihiko Kayaba, the creator and administrator of Sword Art Online, turns out to be the character Heathcliff, leader of the Blood Oath guild. He is also meant to be the boss of Floor 100. After the battle against the boss of Floor 75, Kirito realises Kayaba is Heathcliff because "Nobody could beat me without cheating!" and fights him 25 floors early. He wins, everyone gets logged out, and SAO falls to pieces and ends.

First, Akihiko Kayaba and the ending. Many people are still upset that it ended 25 floors early. The way I would have done this is explained here.

The anime starts with a scene that shows Kirito in the game as a beta tester. Kayaba watches the progress of all the beta testers and is impressed by and interested in Kirito. Kirito shows he is by far the best player of SAO, not particularly by level and/or stats, but by his talent and technique. He is tactical and strategic with how he does things leading to his quick leveling up and excellent fighting skills. Kayaba sets his eyes on Kirito and decides to watch his progress through the game. He creates the game and locks everyone in because he wants to create, not just a virtual reality, but another reality. One better than the real world. When Yui appears, she has no amnesia and instead of being an AI program from the system, turns out to be a gift from Kayaba to Kirito and Asuna since they've proven their love by marrying and even making a sex scene, not fully shown but enough to understand what happened. Yui explains that Kayaba has been watching Kirito for the whole 2 years since the game first started and has gifted him with things for his great feats as well as his great losses. The loss of Sacchi lead Kayaba to give him his special outfit. Defeating members of the Laughing Coffin murder guild lead him to give Kirito the Dual-Blade ability. Gifts include the outfit, his sword, the Dual-Blade ability, the Ragout Rabbit he finds in episode 8, and others. The game suddenly begins to fall apart, gradually self-destructing from the bottom, up. The people realise they are on a short time limit now and quickly tries to push beyond the highest floor they've made it to, Floor 75. After defeating the boss there, Kayaba disguised as Heathcliff reveals his identity, intentions, and what he has been doing the past 2 years to Kirito, Asuna, and everyone else. He wants to battle with Kirito, but is rejected which upsets him. He angrily takes Yui away and she disappears which upsets Asuna. She attacks him only for him to kill her in self defense. Kirito upsets him even more when he doesn't give the satisfaction Kayaba wants and fights poorly. He takes Kayaba's sword into himself, plunges his sword into Kayaba, and they watch as their HP goes down. Kirito loses his HP much faster than Kayaba and hits 0. Kayaba expects him to disappear and die, but he doesn't which confuses Kayaba. He begins to panic and question why he is still losing HP since Kirito already reached 0. Kirito's consciousness stays in the game and defeats Kayaba, leading to the final scene where Kayaba, Kirito, and Asuna are in the sky looking down on the SAO castle falling to pieces. Kirito and Asuna get logged out after Kayaba tells them he sent a file to Kirito's email address containing the program "Yui". Also, keep in mind that the battle between Kirito and Heathcliff in the arena never happens and is instead replaced with scenes of Aincrad's self destruction.

After 2 years in the game, the game self-destructing puts them on a time limit. Since Kayaba set his eyes on Kirito, he wanted to battle with him at the end, hoping to have an amazing clash between them. He knows the game is falling apart and there isn't much more time left. This gives why they fight 25 floors early more reason and sense. Why the game is self destructing could be because the game came out too early from Kayaba's impatience, wanting to dive in with Kirito right away. Or it could be something within the game that causes a system crash.

It ends in a cliffhanger of course, leaving Kazuto and Asuna in real life trying to find a way to bring back Yui.

Sacchi's death was so quick after introducing her that it wasn't very dramatic at all. Spanning her life for at least a few episodes would give her more purpose and her death more dramatic and emotional.

Some people like fanservice, some don't. Since this is a Drama-Romance-Action anime, it doesn't need fanservice. All it needs is some short, comedic scenes for comic relief every now and then and the one sex scene between Kirito and Asuna that doesn't really even show anything except the two kissing in front of the bed, lying down, and making out on the bed while the camera backs away through the window and begins the next scene where it's morning and the two suddenly meet Yui who claims she is their daughter and a gift from Kayaba.

Kirito should never need to be depicted as a high leveled player with high stats and HP. His special-ness comes from his talent as a gamer and SAO player and being tactical and strategic in battle. He shouldn't ever need to be some unbeatable player that is somehow a million times more powerful than everyone else.

Now, I believe it's time to talk about ALO, or Alfheim Online. Some people consider it as the worst arc of the series and here's why.

After Kirito finishes Sword Art Online and awakens, he finds Asuna has yet to wake up and is, in fact, in Alfheim Online. This game takes fantasy and magic and mixes it with sword fighting, guilds, and an objective to conquer. For ALO, the characters are of different races. Kirito becomes a Spriggan, while Leafa is a Sylph. There are also the Cait Sith, Gnome, Imp, Leprechaun, Pooka, Salamander, and Undine. The non-playable race controlled by AI that players can obtain by paying additional fees, or winning a raffle is the Navigation Pixie. Lastly, the ALFs which were believed to have unlimited flight but never actually existed.

(The following paragraph is from Wikipedia)

In the real world, Kazuto discovers that 300 SAO players, including Asuna, remain trapped in their NerveGear. As he goes to the hospital to see Asuna, he meets Shouzou Yuuki, Asuna's father, who is asked by an associate of his, Nobuyuki Sugou, to make a decision, which Sugou later reveals to be his marriage with Asuna, angering Kazuto. Several months later, he is informed by Agil, another SAO survivor, that a figure similar to Asuna was spotted on "The World Tree" in another VRMMORPG cyberspace called Alfheim Online (ALO). Assisted in-game by his cousin Suguha "Leafa" Kirigaya and Yui, a navigation pixie (originally an AI from SAO), he quickly learns that the trapped players in ALO are part of a plan conceived by Sugou to perform illegal experiments on their minds. The goal is to create the perfect mind-control for financial gain and to subjugate Asuna, whom he intends to marry in the real world, to assume control of her family's corporation. Kirito eventually stops the experiment and rescues the remaining 300 SAO players, foiling Sugou's plans. Before leaving ALO to see Asuna, Kayaba, who has uploaded his mind to the Internet using an experimental and destructively high-power version of NerveGear at the cost of his life, entrusts Kirito with The Seed – a package program designed to create virtual worlds. Kazuto eventually reunites with Asuna in the real world and The Seed is released onto the Internet, reviving Aincrad as other VRMMORPGs begin to thrive.

However, in the Revised Version of Sword Art Online, these things would never happen. Leafa has no intimate feelings for Kirito, Asuna is not trapped in ALO, Sugou has no feelings towards Asuna, Kayaba is still alive, and Yui does not turn into a pixie. These are things that are problematic, but can be solved with the right direction from the SAO arc. So here is where the revised SAO arc leads.

Kirito has awakened and finds Asuna in the real world. Together, they want to find a way to see Yui again. Kirito then gets a message from Kayaba telling Kirito to meet him at his house. Asuna distrusts Kayaba because of what he did in SAO, particularly when Kayaba took Yui away in anger. Kirito heads over anyway to meet him and finds Kayaba is actually a very nice, sensitive guy. He offers tea and sits down to explain why he messaged Kirito to come over.

He starts by telling Kirito how he is scheduled for court soon and has been fired from the company that made SAO, replaced by a man named Sugou Nobuyuki. He tells Kirito how untrustworthy Sugou is, how he is much like Kayaba back when SAO first started, then explains that he has changed a lot over the two years in the game. Kirito agrees everyone, including himself, has changed a lot. Kayaba fears Sugou is using the company for selfish or maybe even illegal purposes. Kirito asks why and Kayaba explains Sugou has made a new Nervegear and game called Alfheim Online, or ALO for short. Sugou stole parts of the SAO system and put it into his ALO game. On top of that, Sugou is not very social and rarely ever actually meets with anyone. Kayaba wants Kirito to go into ALO and investigate Sugou's actions and true intentions. Kirito agrees and Kayaba adds that if he never locked everyone in SAO, Kirito probably would have never met Asuna and been given Yui. He implies if the parts of SAO that were stolen were found and brought back to him, he could remake SAO. This time he would make it the way everyone wanted it in the first place. The only way to get these parts is by entering the Alfheim Online console within the game, as trying to get the data from the real world would be too difficult with the workers of the company, passwords, and other things protecting that data. As Kirito leaves, Kayaba mutters to himself, "I might not be able to redeem myself, but at least reveal Sugou for what he truly is."

Kirito enters the game and meets Leafa there. Kirito and Leafa know who each other is already and she decides to teach him the basics of flight and magic. After learning, he's not the best, but is good enough to make it to the World Tree. The Salamander race begins to make trouble for them, but are saved (kind of) by Leafa's friend, Recon. Kirito and Recon become fast friends and in fact, Kirito tries to help Recon stealing Leafa's heart. This becomes a simple "comic relief" factor in the anime. Also, since Leafa has no intimate feelings for Kirito, there is no reason for the part that makes them cousins instead of siblings. That too was a small unnecessary factor that was like saying, "I'm in love with my brother which is wrong, but we're actually cousins and is still wrong so nothing changes."

Kayaba contacts Kirito outside the game to tell him he has found a way to install the Yui program into Kirito's account in the game. Kirito finds "Yui" in his inventory and clicks on it. Yui then appears and does not turn into a pixie. Kirito is comforted with Yui alongside him and introduces her to Leafa and Recon. When they make it to the World Tree, Kirito steps inside. Yui sneaks in behind him and senses what the World Tree truly is. She pulls him out and explains that the World Tree is actually a system that scans and copies the players' minds that enter the tree. There really is no door at the top and is too high up for anyone to fly to the top. They all realise nobody was ever meant to reach the top of the tree. The objective that earns them unlimited flight was just a reason for everyone to enter the tree. Kirito tells Kayaba what the tree is and he is given a disk to install into the game from the company that will scramble the system's scanning abilities, increase players' flight abilities, and creates a door at the top.

Kirito goes to the company and takes a tour of it for the sole purpose to sneak to a computer and install the disk. He succeeds, but unexpectedly meets Sugou face to face. After an upsetting conversation between them, Kirito leaves and tells Asuna about everything going on, including Yui, Sugou, and the World Tree system. Asuna claims she wants to help and see Yui again, but Kirito tells her to stay out of it for now as he is being protective of her. Kirito enters the game, not knowing that Asuna has snuck into the game and is following him to the World Tree. Kirito finds the tree is messed up by the program Kayaba made and there is a door at the top. Fighting his way up with Leafa and Yui, they get through to the console room where Oberon, King Of The Fairies, or his real identity, Sugou is. A fight starts between them and Sugou/Oberon and he then uses the console to control the room and everyone in it. Kirito and the others begin to lose the fight to him when Asuna enters. Getting his attention away from them and the console, she battles with him while Kirito makes it to the console and inserts a disk put into his inventory by Kayaba. Copying the data from the console onto the disk, Oberon begins to fear this and begins to lose the fight against Asuna. When the copying is complete, Kirito turns the disk back into an item in his inventory and tells everyone to escape. Oberon tries to fight against Kirito before is gets out, but loses to him and ends up in the real world badly injured.

In the real world, Kirito returns to Kayaba and gives him a disk that the inventory item was copied onto so that he can finish remaking SAO as well as reveal Sugou's true intentions of using ALO to sell neurological information from research. His means of stealing people's money by getting memory-based passwords, credit card numbers, and so on and the main purpose to control people's minds. Kayaba goes to court where Kirito appears in his defense and the court claims Kayaba is guilty of locking the people in the game, or kidnapping, but not murder as he did not ever intentionally kill anyone or intentionally lead anyone to death. His sentence is lessened by his act of getting and revealing information based on Sugou's actions and motives, so he is sentenced to only a short inprisonment and labor. Kayaba tells Kirito before leaving with the authorities to find the Sword Art Online remake in Kayaba's room.

Kirito finds the game and takes it to the man who has now replaced Sugou in the company, Thinker who has been given this position because of his "MMO Today" net gaming information site and other credentials. The game is then renamed, "Sword Art Online II". The person leading the company now doesn't have to be Thinker, but whoever it should be needs to have a good reason, is friendly to Kirito and his friends, and should know a lot about Sword Art Online.

This is the end of Sword Art Online and paves the way for Sword Art Online II which also gives the title more sense. At the start of the new season, the players enter the new Sword Art Online II game and find that it is how everyone wanted it in the beginning, except for a few unexpected changes Kirito did not know about until now. Kayaba has now made Kirito and Asuna as the highest authorities in the game to guide the players to their potential happiness in the game. Yui is back as their daughter, and people have choices to decide if they want to lock themselves in the game to live there or not. People will not die in real life if they die in the game like before and the game has been fixed in terms of its accidental self-destruction from before.

Sword Art Online II can reintroduce old characters as well as new ones like Silica, Lizbeth, Klein, and Agil. The ALO arc of season one could also reintroduce these characters, but their purpose for being there would be mute as these side characters are not actually needed in the story, but would be in Sword Art Online II.

An alternative to the battle between Oberon and the others is one that brings what some have wanted from the anime, a battle between Asuna and Kirito. Kirito is controlled by Oberon from getting scanned and copied when he stepped foot into the World Tree. Fight between the two leads to Kirito showing his will is still strong enough to resist the control and refuses to attack. Asuna begins then to fight Oberon while Kirito makes it to the console.

Final Thoughts...

There are many problems with Sword Art Online, both the SAO arc and the ALO arc. This leads to the GGO arc of Sword Art Online II, but really points in the wrong direction. So many things are explained badly, unsensable, and poorly executed so that the ALO arc has no good foundation on which to build on. The ALO arc is made with its own flaws as well, including the incest between Kirito and his sister/cousin Suguha, pixie Yui, dead Kayaba, Sugou the raper, and Asuna as a damsel in distress like Princess Peach instead of her normal, strong self. The further the story would go, the more you would see the change between the versions. Eventually, you may end up having to make an entirely different GGO arc. However the characters, places, and backgrounds can still be kept. Overall, I'm pretty happy with this. If you like this, if you have problems with this, if you have ideas or suggestions, or if you just want to give your opinions, comment. Please, your comments are appreciated. Thanks for reading.


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